72 employees at the Department of Environmental Protection who could not work or cannot telework will no longer be paid after April 10, but can use paid leave, unpaid leave with benefits and/or unemployment compensation, according to the Governor’s Office of Administration.
Nine employees at the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources who could not work or telework will no longer be paid after April 10.
At the beginning of this year, DEP had a full-time complement of about 2,343 and DCNR had a full-time complement of about 1,254. In December 2016, Gov. Wolf eliminated 408 then vacancy positions in DEP (290 positions) and DCNR (118 positions). Read more here.
These actions were part of a state government-wide effort to not pay about 9,000 employees after April 10 in an effort to reduce state spending. Read more here.
This is in addition to last week’s announcement that over 700 seasonal wage employees in DCNR’s State Park and Forest operations were put on leave without pay.
Ten temporary clerical/technical staff and annuitants at DEP were also separated from the agency.
Across state government, about 2,500 wage and seasonal employees were let go. Read more here.
Gov. Wolf has also imposed a freeze on hiring and nonessential purchases on March 23.
The Department of Revenue reported a $294.6 reduction in state revenue during March which only covered a portion of the state shutdown.
The Independent Fiscal Office is scheduled to announce the first estimates of the COVID-19 shutdown on state revenues on April 8.
Previous Layoffs
With respect to DEP and DCNR, DCNR reported just over 700 wage employees and interns have been laid off. DEP has not reported any numbers yet.
The last time layoffs affected DEP and DCNR was in 2009 and 2010 when Gov. Rendell laid off state workers and eliminated positions.
In FY 2009-10, 147 employees and vacancies were eliminated from DEP and DCNR and another 186 full-time vacant positions were axed for a total reduction of 333 positions. In addition, Gov. Rendell laid off 1,131 seasonal workers at DCNR and 240 seasonal positions were eliminated. Read more here.
The FY 2010-11 budget erased 16 years of General Fund support for state environmental programs. Read more here.
Of course, DEP has had more than 25 percent of its full-time positions eliminated since 2003 because of regular and frequent budget cuts and billions of dollars in environmental funding has been diverted since then to balance the state budget and fund other unrelated programs. Read more here.
Related Article:
PA Capitol & COVID-19 Report: PA Could See $4 Billion+ Deficit; Revenue Down $294.6M In March [PaEN]
[Posted: April 7, 2020] PA Environment Digest
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